E.ON also used Hitachi Universal Volume Manager software to virtualise data onto the Universal Storage platform, as part of an ongoing datacentre consolidation project. The migration was managed by E.ON IS, the IT subsidiary of the utility, a division that employs over 400 people.

Hitachi Tiered Storage Manager software was used to manage the data move. E.ON said the data migration was made with minimum disruption, and there were no reports of application performance falling.

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The consolidated architecture is providing faster response times and increased capacity, it said. By virtualising the storage on one physical machine, it has also been easier to manage IT projects and update systems, it said.

Peter Arrell, head of UK storage at E.ON, said the company wanted to make better use of server capacity. “When looking at how we could enhance the performance of our IT environment, we were keen to maximise the potential of our existing resources rather than invest heavily in more hardware to boost our core applications.”

Across Europe, E.ON is cutting the number of datacentres it uses from 27 to three. Meanwhile, it is also using VMware virtualisation to cut other Microsoft Windows based machines it uses, in a ratio of 16 to one.

We have been hearing for years how CIOs and senior IT professionals need to bury the hatchet with line of business managers and, instead of focusing on the latest bleeding-edge technology for its own sake, seek to better understand the overall strategic objectives of their organisations.